Five months later, Greece reopened its high schools on Monday. After the authorities provided kits for self-test on the coronavirus, which they hope will help control the pandemic.
High school graduates in high school graduation classes in Greek schools have returned to their classrooms amid a consistently high incidence of Covid-19 infections. Students and teachers must continue to wear masks and take at least two coronavirus tests per week (every Monday and Thursday).
Negative Covid-19 test required to attend school
Teachers, students and support staff will be required to carry a Covid-19 negative test result. Testing is also mandatory for those who have been vaccinated against the virus.
Greece launched a free distribution program last week self-checks on Covid-19 antigen in pharmacies – exclusively among high school students aged 16-18 and teachers.
The test is issued upon presentation of a valid AMKA social security number and with the self-test kit recipients receive written instructions on how to correctly collect the sample.
Self-test registration in AMKA is done in real time to avoid giving multiple tests to the same people from different pharmacies.
Self-diagnostics are quick-detect nasal swab tests (instead of nasopharynx / mouth) performed at home and do not require supervision by a healthcare professional. The authorities explained that the individual self-assessment tests are for healthy and asymptomatic people.
For people with symptoms of infection, such as fever, cough, or other signs of illness, a negative test should always be confirmed with a molecular test.
This means that self-testing must be carried out even in the absence of symptoms of COVID-19, since every third carrier of the virus does not have them.
Consistently high level of Covid-19 infection in Greece
Since the beginning of November, restrictions on the type of isolation have been in effect in Greece. Since then, only special education schools have been open.
On Sunday, Greek health authorities announced 1,718 new cases of coronavirus in the 24-hour period ending at 3:00 pm, as well as 52 deaths.
However, the relatively small number of cases was mainly due to fewer tests performed – 28,887 compared to the average weekly value of 51,040. There are 780 patients on ventilators.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 295,480 confirmed cases of coronavirus, including all those who recovered, and 8,885 people have died.
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